bone walker

Smashwords deploys to both Scribd and Oyster, so if you subscribe to either of those services, you can find the Free Court of Seattle books there! Here are the links, which will be added to the books’ pages:

On a related note, Harlequin has begun experimenting with putting material on Scribd as well. So if you’re a subscriber there you can ALSO read Valor of the Healer! The link for that is here and will be added to Valor‘s page as well.

Scribd does not yet have Vengeance of the Hunter, but they might pick it up if Valor shows some activity. So if you or any of your friends use the service, consider sharing the link around, mmkay? I will get paid for reads of the books on these services!

We’re a little sad that this is in fact the last episode that Matt and Shannon will be doing for a while, since they need to stand down from podcasting to take care of other ongoing life goals–but we’re honored to be in their closing episode, and we very much enjoyed talking to them. I’d never been on a podcast before, so wasn’t sure how it was going to work. But we all sat around a table with headphones on, chatting into microphones. It was fun!

Things I talk about: Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, my goals with the diversity of the cast (both in race and in sexual orientation), my familiarity with Seattle despite not actually being FROM here, and how Elvis and Great Big Sea are both huge musical influences on the storyline.

Things Dara talks about: the history of the bouzouki, how the Bone Walker soundtrack started as a Kickstarter stretch goal and then turned into a monster of epic proportions, hints of future plot points to be glimpsed in “Anarchy Now”, and things to look forward to on the Norwescon music track this year.

Go give it a listen, won’t you? And many thanks to Matt and Shannon for having us! I particularly enjoyed meeting their cats, and was deeply charmed that their big orange one is named after Ben Grimm. 😀

In the midst of all this HEY BONE WALKER IS OUT excitement, do not forget, Victory of the Hawk is ALSO on its way. And there’s official cover copy for it now and everything, so I have updated the official Victory of the Hawk page with it! AND, I have also found it up on iBooks for preordering goodness, so I’ve added that link to the page too.

I have also taken the time to update various high-level pages on the site to be current with the status of Victory and of Bone Walker. The About Me, FAQ, and Books pages have all been updated too with current data, including how to get print copies of Faerie Blood and Bone Walker by ordering via Bandcamp!

Likewise, I have made sure that the current main places to get all of my books are called out on the overall Books page. This includes the direct links to go to the Crime and the Forces of Evil merch pages on Bandcamp, where you can order the aforementioned print editions.

It ALSO includes a direct link to the Audible page for the audiobook edition of Valor of the Healer, which IS a thing that exists, let me remind you all. 😀

I still don’t qualify for membership by the criteria they’re discussing, which are based around “how much income do you pull in from your writing?” They are setting that bar at a level that’d be the equivalent of what authors can get from an advance from a traditional publisher. And honestly, that seems reasonable to me.

Now, though, this changes my likelihood of ever joining SFWA from “well, THAT ain’t gonna happen” over to “possibly feasible, if I keep growing my available titles and sales”. And this does please me. So as I said on the comment I left on the post, I would like to thank the folks in SFWA for making this policy change.

Meanwhile, I am still very pleased that NIWA is a thing that exists, and have renewed my membership with them. The opportunity to be in an organized group of independent authors IS very valuable–if nothing else, the chance to team up to sell books at local conventions is very, very welcome. And I do recommend that fellow indie authors who aren’t yet at SFWA-qualifying levels of sales consider checking them out.

Today’s Bone Walker major news item: if you’re a reader of ebooks on Kobo devices and/or apps, OR if you’re Android-inclined and like to get your digital media from Google Play, then the book is now available for preorder on platforms FOR YOU!

Both of these links have been added to the official Bone Walker page as well!

I can’t deploy to Barnes and Noble yet–NookPress doesn’t support preorders, which is irritating. So if you’re Nook-inclined, hang in there, your link is coming. I’ll be deploying up to B&N on the 2nd, to try to get the book live by the 3rd.

And it’ll take me a bit longer to deploy up to iBooks and Smashwords, since both of those platforms require a few extra hoops to jump through before I can deploy there. I hope to get those platforms up this weekend, since both of them do support preorders.

MEANWHILE: Dara has completed work on a first draft for the PDF that will eventually become the print edition of the book! We DO need layout and format checkers for this, so if you’d like to volunteer to sanity-check the PDF, please let me know and I’ll set you up with a copy of the file. There’s a complimentary final copy of the ebook in the format of your choice in it for you if you aren’t already getting it for some other reason. 😀

AND! In exciting news about the soundtrack, it actually charted for a little bit on Bandcamp’s Alternative chart! It even briefly made it up to the Top 40 on that chart! Very tiny pond, but WE WERE IN IT NONETHELESS. And don’t forget, if you’d like to check out the soundtrack, you can do so right over here. You can stream the whole thing to check it out if you want, and you can buy the digital version RIGHT NOW, or pre-order the CD!

SO EXCITING YOU GUYS. And very soon it will be Conflikt, and we’ll have the release party concert for this thing, and DID I MENTION WE’RE GOING TO HAVE ALEXANDER JAMES ADAMS AND S.J. TUCKER PLAYING WITH US? Which I can actually say now because S00j has posted about it on her VERY OWN WEBSITE? \m/

Bone Walker’s official page has now been updated with all of its Amazon links, both US and International. It’s pre-orderable everywhere Amazon has it posted. So if you’re a Kindle user, you can have at it! Pre-orders would be very helpful as they’ll count towards my February sales and help bump up the book’s early Amazon ranking. There are four pre-orders already, which is awesome!

Also, if you’re someone who’s read one of the pre-release versions of the book and you are so inclined, please consider rating or reviewing it. That’ll help too!

And! Bone Walker now also has an official Goodreads link, so if you’re on Goodreads you can add it to your shelves right over here. Same commentary re: early reviews and ratings applies here, too.

I’ve gotten in some good commentary from proofreaders (thank you, Talya, Jennifer, Maria-Katriina, and Anne!), and I have Emma looking at the test MOBI for any formatting problems. I do still need volunteers to check my test EPUB as well.

Carina Press has given me final text for the official copyright notices at the front of the book, for use of my Carina books’ covers and blurb copy in the back. I still do not have an official cover or copy for Victory of the Hawk there, so Victory may or may not get an ad into the print edition. It will hopefully have one in the ebook at least!

(Also, Carina’s editorial staff sent around a helpful mail to all the Carina authors after working with me on this, with a how-to for how to use allowed Carina material for promoting our titles with them in our self-pubbed works. Which is pretty awesome. Kudos to Carina’s team for that. ^_^ )

Last but not least, I’ve started whipping up a few tweets to fling around Twitter to encourage people to go preorder the book. If you’re on Twitter and feel like signalboosting me, here, have some example tweets you can use! Or feel free to make up one and use the bit.ly link!

All that keeps a dark spirit from destroying Seattle is a half-Seelie mage! Bone Walker by @annathepiper, out 2/3! http://bit.ly/1FRTDpV

ONE LAST THING: Dara has a question for folks pertaining to CD Baby’s release of the soundtrack! She wants to know whether you think CD Baby’s automatic appending of “(Original Soundtrack)” to the title is a good thing or a bad thing. If you have thoughts on the matter, tell her over here!

Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, I take great pleasure in announcing that Bone Walker is NOW AVAILABLE for Amazon pre-order. So if you’re a Kindle user and you aren’t already getting a copy of this book as part of your Kickstarter rewards, you can pre-order it for your Kindle right over here!

So YES, my deploy of the test mobi up to Amazon was successful. 😀

This now also means that I have viable test MOBI and EPUB files. The EPUB will get deployed everywhere else Bone Walker will be sold–i.e., to all the other places where Faerie Blood is currently sold–once the EPUB is actually final. Right now what’s in the MOBI and EPUB is the same not-quite-final text that’s in the PDF; I need to fill in the placeholder text in the Acknowledgements, and also for the ad for Victory of the Hawk.

If you want to volunteer to format-check, NOW is the time!

As previously mentioned, I could use any and all eyes who have access to Kindles, Nooks, Kobos, iOS devices, or Android devices of any stripe. Let me know if you want the EPUB or the MOBI, and I’ll set you up. What I’ll need from you is more format checking than actual proofreading–though if you do actually spot a typo of any kind, let me know.

I’ll be putting up part 2 of the bug bash post, same password as the previous post, to be the official place to report formatting errors. Stand by all!

Edited to add: And OH YES this also means that now that Bone Walker has a viable record on Amazon, this DOES mean now that if you’ve read it, you can REVIEW it there. Please consider doing so. 😀

First up, I had a couple of excellent Boosting the Signal posts this past Friday! Cory Dale sent me an excerpt from her new release Demon Fare, and Jake Elliot, fellow member of NIWA, came by to tell me about his “mock-epic” fantasy The Wrong Way Down. Check their posts out if you missed ’em when they went up!

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Second, Bone Walker has a release date! AND A COVER! \m/ The ebook edition will be officially releasing on February 3rd! The official Bone Walker page has been updated accordingly! And the cover is now included on the homepage as well!

And as soon as I have a viable test mobi, I will be putting the book up for pre-order on Amazon. Other pre-order links will be following as soon as I can make them.

All hail Dara for her cover work and Kiri Moth for the art!

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Third, speaking of Bone Walker‘s march to release, I have already asked current proofreaders to get any noted typos back to me by Wednesday the 14th. Because Dara needs to commence work on the print and PDF versions ASAP in order to maximize our chances of having the print edition ready by Conflikt. So if you’re proofreading and you didn’t already see a request about that, do please get back to me by Wednesday!

On a related note, however, if you’d like to sanity-check ebook formats for me, stand by. As soon as I have a viable test mobi, I will need it tested on any and all available Kindle devices. I personally own a Kindle Fire HDX 7″ and will be using that for testing purposes. But all other types of Kindle will be welcome.

Likewise, I have two Nooks: a Nook HD and one of the new 7″ Samsung Nooks. I also have a Kobo Mini. Both will be used to test. If you have other type of Nook or Kobo device, though, those would be helpful.

AND, any iOS device owners comfortable with using iBooks OR Android device owners comfortable with getting books onto your devices, testing from you would be welcome too. Though tablets will be most useful once we have the PDF ready to test.

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Last but not least, don’t forget, Faerie Blood remains on sale for 99 cents to celebrate Bone Walker‘s imminent release! It will remain on sale until the end of February, at which point I’ll bump the price back up. So if you haven’t gotten the ebook of Faerie Blood yet, now would be a REALLY good time. ;D

And if you’re so inclined, do please spread the word about the sale! The sale price applies wherever Faerie Blood‘s ebook edition is sold, and I will honor it for any requests to buy the book directly from me as well!